All posts tagged ‘Museum of Modern Art’

I keep finding myself smitten with apps that unleash the artist within, particularly when those apps have innovative features and are good for a wide variety of ages. Here are three–ok, four–apps that fit the bill.

Toontastic is an app that celebrates storytelling and puts all of the necessary tools for storytelling at your child’s disposal. On the surface, there’s a variety of background images and animation sprites that become your puppets as you tell a story. But the step-by-step creation of a cartoon makes you pause and think more about your creative process. First, there’s the Story Arc. You can’t just go willy-nilly making scenes. Do you want to make the story’s setup, conflict, challenge, climax, or resolution? Kids can learn what these different story parts are, and then solidify that understanding by making the corresponding scene.

The stage is set and storytelling is ready to begin. Tootastic screen capture.

You create scenes by choosing a background or by drawing your own. Then choose characters for your scene. It’s worth noting here that while the app is free, as are a handful of backgrounds and characters, you get a bigger set to choose from via in-app purchases. Themed packs are $0.99 and an all-access pass is $9.99. You should go ahead and think of this as a $10 app and go all-in, having lots to choose from. Once your background and characters are in place, you can start your animation. Then, in real time, move the characters around the scene as you give them dialog. The app records everything you’re doing. Keep going with additional scenes, and add music and titles to your creation. Here’s a movie that my 7-year-old made with Toontastic and uploaded to their Toon Tube.

I wish it was a little easier to control the movements of the characters, but my daughter seems to be happy with the controls. With younger kids in mind, Launchpad Toys just launched Toontastic, Jr. Pirates for ages 3-6. In a conversation I had with Andy Russell, creator of Launchpad Toys, Andy explained that the blank canvas was too much pressure for the little ones, so they designed a new platform. In this new app, there’s a slot machine-style interface that serves up three different pirate scenes, each of which begins with an animated story starter. Kids can jump in where the story leaves off. One truly innovative feature in this new version came from what Andy called “the sharing gap.” If you tell little kids they can share their story, they didn’t have a clue that meant posting online for others to see. “Sharing a story” to little kids means doing a story together, and Toontastic, Jr. makes that a reality. Powered by Skype, two people can make an animation at the same time, even if separated by thousands of miles. You can hear and see what the other person is doing, and then join in the storytelling fun. Toontastic, Jr. Pirates is only $1.99, with no further in-app purchases.